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Julia Jones (Alyson Hannigan) is an obese woman who dreams of marrying Napoleon Dynamite (Josh Meyers), but even in her dreams she is rejected. Writing in her diary, she thinks she will never find her true love. Julia goes outside and dances to impress men on the streets, but is unsuccessful. Julia goes to work at her father Frank's (Eddie Griffin) Greek diner. There she meets Grant Fockyerdoder, with whom she forms an instant attraction. When Frank yells at Julia to get an order, she turns to respond and hits Grant over the head with the coffee pot she is holding, knocking him to the floor. She turns around only to find his table is suddenly empty and figures he ran away. Julia wants help and goes to see a love therapist, Hitch, who rejects her at first but reluctantly agrees to help her. Hitch takes her to a garage where she gets "pimped out" and made slimmer.

She earns a spot on a reality television dating show called The Extreme Bachelor, the bachelor turning out to be Grant, the man she met in the diner. Host Ty Andrews (Scott Speedman) introduces Grant, who greets all the women and is asked to eliminate the losers, which he does by shooting them one by one. Julia is the last woman standing and is rewarded with dinner for two at a restaurant called "A Restaurant". After their meal, Julia and Grant head back to her apartment, where they have sex. Julia takes Grant to meet her parents.

Later, Grant takes Julia to Tiffany & Co., where they turn on the lights to reveal the salespeople ready to let her pick whatever she wants. Grant then confesses he loves her and proposes to her. Julia happily says yes. Julia and Grant go to a wedding planner named Jell-O (Valery Ortiz), who has a massive butt. She suggests that they go to a restaurant called Taco Butt (in a deleted scene of the movie, she uses her butt as a pencil sharpener and recommends that they use a garbage barge as their wedding location). When they decline, she gets annoyed. When Grant says he has a best man, she shows them what she booked for the entertainment, after which she uses her butt to knock over her desk then rips off her clothes to reveal a gold bra and tights. She shows off her dance moves, then twerks and bounce and backs up to the couple with her massive booty for them to scream while she bounces and crushes them under her butt. The extended scene is she has backup dancers and she bounces and shows off her dance moves until she shakes her massive booty right to them for them to scream and knocks them over with both of her buttcheeks to end it. Afterwards, Grant introduces Julia to his ex-fiancée, Andy, who turns out to be rather attractive and is not afraid to take her clothes off and converse with people while nude. Andy initially seems to harbor no resentment towards Julia for marrying Grant, going so far as to help Julia shop for her wedding dress. At the dress store, Julia hits her head on a power box and finds that she can read people's thoughts. Julia finds from reading Andy's mind that she wants to get back together with Grant and plans to split the two of them up. Julia and Andy fight each other, Kill Bill-style. In one alternate version of the film adaptation, they walk off the screen—presumably to the left—in order to engage in "foot fellatio" to quote Danny (Jack Cortes) verbatim.

She cannot forgive Grant, and agrees to marry Nicky. Once at the altar with Nicky, Julia is regretting it and has flashbacks about her and Grant. Frank objects to the union and realizes he was wrong about Grant who liked her even when Julia was ugly (having seen the flashback), he persuades her to go after Grant who is revealed to have waited for months. Julia journeys to meet him as he is leaving, while tossing aside Andy who was pursuing him too. Julia arrives too late and sees Grant on the streets before she falls off the roof, though is conveniently caught by Grant. They get back together and get married, with Hitch officiating. Andy and Nicky meet at the wedding, and fall in love. Meanwhile, Grant and Julia leave in a horse and carriage. Julia also gets a present from her mother-in-law: a vaginal thermometer which apparently has been in their family for generations and is regarded as good luck when it is not washed.

On their honeymoon, Grant and Julia go to Skull Island and film a woman, Anne (Carmen Electra), tied to two pieces of wood. King Kong comes on and rips off her dress, leaving her clad in a leopard print bikini. King Kong then gropes her, she says "I like hairy guys" and King Kong roars and flattens her.

The film did not have advance press screenings.[9] It received unfavorable critic reviews, with Rotten Tomatoes giving the film a score of 7% based on reviews from 86 critics, with an average rating of 2.5/10. The site's critical consensus states: "In an attempt to parody rom-com clichés, Date Movie ultimately makes a mockery of itself, with juvenile toilet humor and empty pop culture references."[10] The site ranked the film 77th in the 100 worst reviewed films of the 2000s, with a rating of 6%.[11]Metacritic gives the film a score of 11% based on reviews from 18 critics, indicating "overwhelming dislike".[12]

Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly awarded the film a B- grade, and compared it to fast food, suggesting that if audiences are "hungry for comedy that's salty and loud," this film might be just what audiences are craving.[4]Variety praised Jennifer Coolidge for providing a few bright moments with a spot-on spoof of Barbra Streisand, but was otherwise unimpressed describing the film as "padded and repetitious".[6]

Critic Scott Tobias of The A.V. Club was amazed that a "joke-a-second comedy" failed to contain a single laugh.[3]

Kyle Smith of the New York Post stated that the film was a "collection of throwaway gags from other movies, a big blue recycling barrel of comedy waiting for the trash collector." He also joked that the reason why it carried a PG-13 rating was "because 13 is the maximum age of those who might find it funny."[citation needed]

Pete Vonder Haar of Film Threat described the film as a contender for worst of 2006. He walked out of the film after 29 minutes without a single laugh, and said he did not feel any guilt about it. He described the laughter of others in the audience as "inexplicable" and wondered if the American cinema going audience is made up of "deranged howler monkeys".[9]